The Pietraroia limestone beds near Naples, Italy, are celebrated for the exquisite fossils they've yielded up since the early 1800s--gorgeously preserved specimens of prehistoric fish and a few birds. No dinosaurs, though. While the rocks date back some 110 million years, smack in the middle of the terrible lizards' reign, not a single dinosaur bone had ever been found there. As far as amateur paleontologist Giovanni Todesco knew, that dismal record was still intact even after he unearthed a 9-in.-long specimen about a decade ago. The nearly complete skeleton, missing only its tail and the lower part of its legs, looked...
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